Salle Mauro Fencing Academy – Online Registration

Beginner Class —

Online Enrollment Form

Location

Salle Mauro Fencing Academy 4007 EE Bellaire Blvd Houston, TX 77074

Equipment

The club provides all fencing equipment needed for the Cavalier Class. Fencers should come in a t-shirt, shorts or warm-up pants, and athletic shoes.

Cost

The Cavalier Class is $90 per month. The first month there is a $25 registration fee.

From Rice University’s “Who Knew”:

Mauro Hamza

Perfecting his thrust, pull and parry are all in a day’s work for Rice University’s Mauro Hamza, recognized as one of America’s top fencing instructors. Hamza really hit his mark in July when he was chosen to coach the U.S. National Men’s Foil team for the 2012 Olympics. A former international competitor from Egypt and coach of the Egyptian National Team in Athens 2004, Hamza will ready the squad for individual and team events, as well as continue teaching Rice students the strategies of landing the perfect touch. Since joining Rice in 1995, he has raised interest — and more than a few swords — in the sport of fencing. In addition to earning a physical education credit in fencing, students also compete against other universities through Rice’s Fencing Club, one of 21 club sports available on campus. Hamza contends that good fencers use physical skills and brains — two traits in plentiful supply at Rice. As Rice’s competitors often say, “Curses, foiled again.”

From Page 19 of the September 2009 West University Buzz:

by Cheryl Laird, staff writer

Writer Cheryl Laird salutes before fencing at her first Summer Nationals tournament.

Life-changing moments come in all shapes.  For me, it was a beekeeper’s mask.  Actually, it just looked like a beekeeper’s mask, with its black metal mesh.

“It’s for fencing,” said my husband.  I finished unwrapping his Christmas present and posed awkwardly for a photo.  The gift came with fencing lessons.

“For me?” I thought. “You shouldn’t have. Really.”

He explained that since I rode horses and loved fantasy stories like The Lord of the Rings, he figured that all I was missing was the sword.

It was the most thoughtful present I ever had received.  And I didn’t want it.  Fencing was way out of my comfort zone, and I didn’t like to do things I didn’t know how to do.

Besides, I was a mom to two young kids.  Moms don’t poke other people with long sticks.  Moms apply too much sunscreen and fall asleep at 9 p.m.  It had taken time for me to embrace motherhood, but now I had settled comfortably into my role.

At the first class, I felt as if I had wandered into the wrong room and didn’t have sense enough to leave.  It was embarrassing to jog with the younger students with all my extra mom softness flapping around.

When we picked up our weapons, my teacher told me to hit her.  I tentatively reached out. It felt wrong to stab her so that the steel bent.  Unlike the adolescent boys in the class, I hadn’t grown up playfighting.  My sister and I didn’t wrestle.  When I got hurt, I didn’t tough it out in silence.

It took a while, but I came to relish those nights.  My bruises became badges of honor.  Maybe the foil wasn’t a real sword, but I felt like a hero.  When I got a touch, I felt a rush of primal satisfaction.  I liked competition.  How could I have forgotten that?

It slowly dawned on me that as rewarding as motherhood was, it wasn’t the final chapter in my life.  I was still the same tomboy I used to be.  Saying vows and giving birth didn’t make me a girly-girl.

Some of my friends didn’t get it.  But others who had passions – art, horses, work – did. We shared our guilt over time spent away from family.  We wondered whether we were good role models.  I wished out loud that I had fallen for cooking or something useful.  But I felt undeniably alive.

This summer, I placed well enough in local tournaments to qualify for the year-end U.S. Summer National Championships.  I drove up to Dallas with a friend from my West University-area fencing club, Salle Mauro.

The convention center was packed with competitors, most under drinking age.  But there were a surprisingly large number of people my age and older.  At first, I went into my old mode of “Oh, isn’t it funny that I’m doing this?”  If I didn’t act as if I wanted to win, then it wouldn’t hurt to lose.  Not surprisingly, that attitude didn’t pay off, and the results of my first foil event were nothing special.

The next day, I competed in epee.  In epee, you can hit your opponent all over, while foil has different rules and a smaller target area.  I was newer to epee and didn’t expect much.

But sometime during my bout, I realized that my opponent didn’t know me, or that I was someone’s mom.  She was scared.  Of me.  I began to predict what she would do and beat her to the punch.  It worked.  And then it worked on the next girl.  And almost the next one.

I lost to her 15-14.  When I lost, I threw back my head and yelled in frustration.  And it felt awesome.  I had done all that I could do, and she beat me fairly.  But I could have beat her.  And the next time, I would.  I realized, finally, that I deserved to be there as much as anyone.

The final day was a foil event for women in their 40s.  The veteran fencers’ actions were clean and beautiful.  Until they took off their masks, you couldn’t tell their age.  It was inspiring, and I was satisfied with placing in the top half.

Afterward, I learned that a woman in her ‘80s was fencing that week.  “The shell ages,” she had said, “but the desire to compete is the same.”

I get it now.  Thanks to the gift of a beekeeper’s mask.

9/4/2009

Mauro Hamza

Rice’s Hamza named men’s foil coach for Team USA
BY MOISEKAPENDA BOWER
Special to the Rice News

Had the moments immediately following his appointment as men’s foil coach for Team USA been filled with fanciful thoughts of Olympic glory, no one would have blamed Rice fencing coach Mauro Hamza. Such inclinations are completely natural.

Rice fencing coach Mauro Hamza has been appointed as men’s foil coach for Team USA.
But with the 2009 Senior World Championships coming this month in Turkey and the Zonal Championships to follow next summer, Hamza could not afford to daydream. Qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Games in London requires commitment far greater than any effort previously spearheaded by Hamza.

“I don’t cross a hurdle until I reach it,” Hamza said. “I know there is a lot of work that needs to be done, and that’s why it’s like a mile. Mile by mile until I get there.”

In July, Hamza was named one of six weapons coaches by US Fencing, each charged with the task of qualifying for and medaling at the 2012 Olympic Games. The national team appointment is the first for Hamza. He helped coach the U.S. junior/cadet national team to its first world championship in Poland in 2001 and served as coach of the Egyptian team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

That success validated Hamza in international coaching circles, but he views his current challenge in a different light. Developing the juniors into an international power required painstaking persistence, but achieving a similar level of notoriety on the senior circuit will test the will of everyone remotely affiliated with US Fencing.

“It’s a lot of work,” Hamza said. “A lot of good work needs to be done in order to achieve a medal in the Senior World Championships and also the Olympic Games. Our team is a younger team. We’ve managed in the last couple of years to become No. 1 in the world as a junior (team), and last year we took the silver medal. That team is the same team I’m going to try to qualify for the Olympic Games. We have already instilled in them the culture to become an Olympic champion. So that’s why I’m saying the job is difficult to transfer them from a junior (team) to competing at a very high level. There is a good chance for us to do well.”

Rice Athletics
Find out more about the varsity and club sports available at Ricehas outlined a plan to get his team up to spec. He believes in blending physical training with mental reinforcement and video analysis. Many of his potential team members are young — either college seniors or recent graduates — so it is imperative they follow a strict regimen. Hamza senses a shift of perceptions internationally regarding US Fencing, thanks in part to the success of the junior team. No longer will Team USA be dismissively viewed as a perennial underdog, and with great expectations — inward and outward — come increased responsibilities.

Unlike with the junior team eight years ago, Hamza is not building from scratch.

“It’s a similar situation, but it needs a little more structure,” Hamza said. “We have to structure it in a way that people start to know that we are becoming a powerhouse.

“So the job is even more difficult because when you come as an underdog no one knows who you are, but now when you are on the spot and everyone is looking for you, for sure (it is more challenging). We are on the spot now.”

The first challenge will come in Antalya, Turkey, at the Senior World Championships Sept. 30-Oct. 8. There, Hamza aims to improve his team’s international ranking while establishing those competitors transitioning from the junior team. From there, Hamza will lead the way through a series of competitions designed to prepare Team USA to challenge Italy, France, Japan, China, Poland, Germany and the British for supremacy in London. Only eight teams will qualify for the 2012 games, and with the clock winding down, Hamza is hard at work.

Hamza doesn’t know of any other way. Perhaps one day he can dream of triumph.

“I work 24/7 always thinking (of) excelling, enhancing, what can we do (and) how can we get rid of the weakness and increase our strengths,” Hamza said. “Yes, it’s a joy. Actually, I will get the joy if we do well at the Olympic Games.

“This is very exciting for me because I know it is within reach.”